When Rabid Minds Go Rogue

"Serial killers are as fascinating as they are horrifying. As much as we fear them, we can't help but be captivated and perplexed by their nature" ("Bloodthirsty," n.d.). 

There have been many infographics like this one that list some of the most notorious psychotic murderers out there though not one chart can be large enough so as to contain the entire potential scope of human atrocities. As for me, I have mine own favorite five menacing murderers:

My list begins with Pedro Filho, who, having been born with a deformed skull due to his father beating his mother’s womb during her pregnancy, committed his very first crime at the young age of fourteen by murdering the employer who fired his father from his job. He eventually went on to butcher his father and eat a part of his heart after the latter killed his mother with a machete. His murder count totals seventy-one victims (“Profile: Pedro Filho,” 2012). 

Next, come Jeffrey Dahmer and Ted Bundy, both of whom grew up in “normal” loving households with supportive family members. Primarily, Dahmer was notoriously famous for his bizarre necrophilia and cannibalism fetish. Although he was known for raping, dismembering, and cannibalizing seventeen men and boys, and received seventeen consecutive life sentences, he was killed by a fellow inmate after serving just two years in prison. “The contrast between the seemingly normal public life Dahmer lived, and the unspeakable acts occurring behind closed doors made the case all the more unusual” (Brad, 2013).

Another personal favorite of mine, Ted Bundy was a charismatic criminal with an IQ higher than that of the average individual, who killed, raped, murdered, and decapitated his female victims. More so, although the courts have proven and documented twelve cases, strong evidence suggests that he has killed over a hundred (Brad, 2013). 

As we move closer towards the end of my list, it really doesn’t matter who I save for last: Jack the Ripper or Edward Gein as both are remembered not for their victim count (which wasn’t too high) but for the degree of viciousness regarding the crimes they committed. “Jack the Ripper” was a pseudonym given to a man specialized only in the killing of prostitutes parading the streets of London at night in the year 1888 (Barbee, n.d.). It wasn’t just that the fact that he wasn’t captured what made him one of the most puzzling mysteries at the time, it was also the fact that his murders were so carefully executed to the point where police and doctors actually believed he had to have had some knowledge in human anatomy and biology in order for him to have always been able to extract “souvenirs” from his victims’ bodies while keeping the rest of their organs intact. That said, his crimes were “marked by sadistic butchery, suggesting a mind more sociopathic and hateful than most citizens could comprehend. Jack the Ripper didn't just snuff out life with a knife, he mutilated and humiliated women, and his crimes seemed to portray an abhorrance for the entire female gender” (“Jack the Ripper Biography,” n.d.). 

Last but certainly not least, Edward Gein became the inspiration for numerous books and horror movies when the public discovered how he had robbed female graves and collected different parts of his victims’ sexual organs either in order to satiate his burning desire of changing his sex from male to female, or so as to recreate a fleshy template of his deceased mother. Once police finally broke into his house, they even discovered an assortment of ghastly memorabilia like upholstery made of human skin, skull mugs, and nipple-belts (Brad, 2013). 

I often used to spend most of my time watching violent horror movies with very graphic content, or keeping up with the latest solved and unsolved brutal murders on the Investigation Discovery channel. The more disturbing the crime was, the more I found myself so interested in learning more about its perpetrator’s methods of execution and overall early childhood and background. I have absolutely no idea why I find the criminal mind so fascinating, but one major quandary that most certainly triggered my curiosity had to be the famous nature/nurture debate. As when it comes to the homosexuality controversy, everyone has always been curious about answering one pivotal question: Whenever a person deviates from the “norm,” was he born different or did he later choose to become different after having faced certain circumstances in his life? I personally find that question quite intriguing, especially given the ominous importance people place on “norms” in the first place. After all, to know if we strayed away from the normal, shouldn’t we first determine what exactly constitutes the norm, or how the term could be defined? While scientists haven’t been able to totally resolve that controversy, they have discovered that it can’t but be a combination of the two: nature, but triggered – or rather activated – by nurture. In other words, even if one were born gay, he would never actually become gay had his surroundings not fostered or supported those innate desires of his. The analogy becomes especially relevant once we compare it to the eerie criminal mind. This second infographic illustrates how Jim Fallon, a neuroscientist who studied the brains of psychopaths for over twenty years, discovered that although the genetic makeup and brain patterns of individuals could result in “low activity in the orbital cortex mean[ing] less normal suppression of behaviors such as rage, violence, eating, sex [and] drinking” (“The Brain of a Serial Killer,” n.d.), these factors, on their own, are not entirely conducive to the making of a serial killer. Interestingly enough, the other critical criterion appears to be childhood abuse or violence. That said, much like the conclusion reached with the homosexual nature/nurture debate, when it comes to psychopaths, even if a potential killer had the predisposition to become aggressive and violent – which Fallon apparently noticed most of the men in his family including himself have due to heredity – that does not necessarily mean this person will become an actual killer; especially if no environmental conditions get factored in (“The Brain of a Serial Killer,” n.d.; Sóuter, 2014). 

So for some strange reason, all this somehow got me thinking about writing: I noticed a pattern regarding the nature/nurture dilemma and immediately became excited about finding out if the same conclusions applied to writers and the process of writing in general. Certainly, many talented writers famous today were once dropouts like Charles Dickens, Jack Kerouac, and Marc Twain who never continued their formal training their entire lives, just as many other authors like Stephen King, Amy Tan, John Updike and Dr. Seuss (a.k.a. Theodor Geisel) majored in English and chose to constantly learn, and practice their writing. To go back to our analogy, “once a serial killer does embark on their murderous spree […] their behavior is often reinforced and will continue to escalate until they are apprehended. Very few killers stop unless they either die or are incarcerated […] The problem is that a serial killer is often driven by either a rage or a deep seated desire to kill, which makes treatment approaches problematic” (Sóuter, 2014). I personally think that the same concept applies to aspiring writers; whether professionally trained or driven by nothing other than their own pure personal passion, the writer will write each time he has the urge to share a message and if it so happens that his message is to keep spreading messages, then he will never find a reason to stop writing. In that sense, writers are more like psychotics than psychopaths. In other words, while “psychotics and psychopaths can have traits in common […] they differ in terms of whether they are in touch with reality. Psychopaths are calculating and manipulative but they do not suffer from hallucinations or delusions” (Brogaard, 2012). While both terms could be applied to those who write, a psychopathic writer would rip the paper apart if he felt the well of ideas ran a bit too deep, a bit too dry. A psychotic writer, on the other hand, would simply imagine the well to be bottomless, and jump right in. All things considered, however, it is worth mentioning that I’m not trying to argue that writers and murderers are one in the same. This post transcends that chilly (though somewhat plausible) contention. 

My purpose has been trying to understand what happens when the extreme drive of certain individuals, be it writers or murderers, is sent into overdrive. After all, we all know what happens when writers write, and murderers murder. That said, what makes me lie awake thinking most nights, is imagining the limitless possibilities that may surface the uncanny moment the psychotic, the psychopath, and the writer all merge, and scarily coincide, into one.

References

• Bloodthirsty — Inside the mind of a serial killer. (n.d.). Criminal Justice Degree Hub. Retrieved from http://www.criminaljusticedegreehub.com/serial-killers/
• Barbee, L. (n.d.). Jack the ripper: Introduction to the case. Casebook. Retrieved from http://www.casebook.org/intro.html
• Brad. (2013, Oct. 11). 10 Most heinous serial killers of all time. Background Checks.org. Retrieved from http://backgroundchecks.org/10-most-heinous-serial-killers-of-all-time.html
• Brogaard, B. (2012, Dec. 7). The making of a serial killer: Possible social causes of psychopathology. Psychology Today. Retrieved from https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-superhuman-mind/201212/the-making-serial-killer
• Famous English majors. (n.d.). Washington State University: College of Arts and Sciences, Department of English. Retrieved from http://libarts.wsu.edu/english/famous.html
• Jack the ripper biography. (n.d.). Biography. Retrieved from http://www.biography.com/people/jack-the-ripper-9351486
• Profile: Pedro Filho. (2012, Aug. 6). Body Report. Retrieved from http://bodyreport.com/article/profile-pedro-filho
• Sóuter, E. (2014, May 27). Inside the minds of serial killers. Experts reveal who they really are. The Stir. Retrieved from http://thestir.cafemom.com/crime/172873/inside_the_mind_of_a
• Temple, E. (2012, Sept. 20). A tale of 10 dropouts: Famous authors who left school at an early age. The Atlantic. Retrieved from http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2012/09/a-tale-of-10-dropouts-famous-authors-who-left-school-at-an-early-age/262633/#slide3
• The brain of a serial killer. (n.d.). Best Counseling Degrees. Retrieved from http://www.bestcounselingdegrees.net/serial-killer/

Far Futures, Worn-out Warnings and Writings, and Dystopic Dreams

It’s the year 7,777. They said that the 777th prophet would appear on this special date yet the day passed, as many others before it have, without the slightest bit of difference. You’d think people would’ve become disillusioned by now but as the years went by, only a select few learned to adapt to a post-apocalyptic world without religion, while the majority could only survive by making the sole purpose of their lives revolve around their proselytizing profession. On Mars, the new pantheistic faith “solipsism” put the former trite monotheistic religions to shame. When astrophysicists were finally able to move humans to a new destination prior to the final and fatal meteor-shower, many clergytrackfficers rushed to pack a few holy books with them before everything remaining on planet earth incinerated and nothing was left behind but dirt, rubble, and a few unfinished and unfulfilled dreams. On Mars, all the basic patriarchal social structures were maintained -- as they had been in the past 400 years: Every family consisted of a biomother, a biofather, a cultured sterilized germ gradually defrosting from its centennial slumber, and of course a lolistilla lavendrus – the cannibalistic species of the lotus genus known for its masochistic self-generating tendencies as it bites into its own fleshy leaf dripping slowly the elixir of life that cures all ailments and makes immortality not just possible, but also the least difficult objective to maintain for the sustenance of every robohumanoid on Mars. Order on this planet had also changed very little; if at all: the planet was divided into marshes (what were formerly referred to as “countries”) where each marsh district had its own representative, and every few centuries the ministers would meet to discuss how they could finally transcribe or decode some of the cryptic messages their forefathers had left them on those strange parchments they referred to as “papers”. Rumor had it that many of them contained blatant alarming warnings urging the past “humans” not to get lost in their own inventions, but the marshlords only ever vehemently denied those allegations and always insisted writing was now a gratuitous archaic art-form no longer necessary since the invention of digipills that weekly record and report all our thoughts into megacellabrumaticallyhexaadvancedteloportals. This was a world made easy. Where people lived longer, though they had nothing really to live for. Where humans did very little because machines did everything and self-coded themselves for scheduled repairs, upgrades, and other types of rudimentary maintenance. Where the only ailment people ever complained about was about how there was never any ailment to complain about. Hydropulsatables had become the norm for heating metallyzed-huts, yet an eerie cold lingered on. And as no one believed in Old Hallow’s or Saint Eve’s anymore, most plain days brought about equally plain nights. Nothing ever happened. And no one was saved.

Building Bodies

to Talal Nizameddin

It’s my gym-versary. 

As of today, I’ve officially been gymming for 6 months. 

For those of you wondering how I have the time: I don’t. 

I remember being sportive my whole life having done Ballet for 12 years, Taekwondo for 4 years, Rhythmic Gymnastics for 4 years, and Yoga for 2 years. 

Then academia “happened”. And I quit. 

It most certainly was not a decision I was happy about; rather one I felt had to be made given that as I grew older, my studies demanded more of my time and concentration. It seemed simple: The more pressured I was, the more nervous I became, so working on “fixing” my body had to come second to everything else. There was simply no time.

It wasn’t until recently, and after quite a good deal of introspection and a heartfelt conversation I had with a caring friend, that I came to the harsh realization that happiness and/or success is a choice. I could not possibly dream of having my former active lifestyle and expect to be happy and fit if I wasn’t going to do anything to purposefully invoke a change and make it happen. 

So I joined a gym. With my hectic part-time schedule, that meant that after waking up at 6am, teaching at 3 universities, driving for 3 hours, and arriving home by 8pm, I would pack my gym bag, and be at the gym by 8.30pm after which I would train for an hour, shower, and be in bed by 11pm. This cycle would repeat itself 6 times, as I would train weights/lifting 3 times a week, and cardio another 3 times a week.

Most colleagues thought I was losing my mind. Others simply felt pity for me as they thought I was working myself too hard, that the rigorous schedule was unnecessary, and that my body looked “okay” without it. 

As a slightly obsessive-compulsive pattern-observer, the irony didn’t escape me: Fellow colleagues (English Instructors) were telling me that my “body” was “fine” and that there was no need to “fix” it. The analogy was too great for me to overlook. I started wondering: Why is it that we often succumb to our lethargic instincts and settle for “okay” when we know with that bit of extra “toning”, the artifact in process could turn out to be a masterful work of art?

Personally, any pieces of writing of mine (especially my poems) are ones I set aside for weeks and weeks before I revisit them again and consider sending them out for publication. Sometimes, I revise for language; other times I discard an idea altogether. Sometimes I find the trail I was on to be leading me nowhere, and on other rare days, I challenge myself and add more research/data/imagery that I can never be entirely sure I can handle at the time, but would love to see myself experimenting with anyway. 

When I started training at the gym, I could barely lift 1kg and run for 2 minutes nonstop. I would strain myself all the time as my muscles hadn’t been worked in a while.

When I first started writing, all my poems were abstract nursery rhymes, and my research was a chaotic conversational collage, as opposed to a structured sequenced synthesis. My mind would often freeze as I’d heavy-heartedly lament my inevitable writer’s block.

I now lift 16kg, can run for 60 minutes nonstop (which adds up to a total of 25km / a week) – and I’m still training.

I now write free-verse and prose, publish for the sheer pleasure of sharing my poetry, and engage in academic research for the simple pleasure of learning more, engaging in hermeneutic discussions, and promoting civic engagement – and I’m still writing. 

I’ve observed that our culture has become too accustomed to investing in “quick-fixes” that we have forgotten that one of the greatest rewards in life is enjoying the drafting process; making the simple decision that to be happy, to be successful, something must be done. 

For me, some days that meant going to the Writing Center, and other days, it meant consulting my gym coach. Although, even to date, I still consider neither myself, nor my writings -- by any means -- a complete draft. 

After all, a muscle is only as strong as you repeatedly train it, so one thing is certain: The gym gloves and notepad are here to stay.